


she doesn't speak (he listens)

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Andrew POV, Couples with boundaries and mutual respect, F/M, Hotel Sex, May coming home, Oral Sex, Shower Sex, feels porn, i have a lot of meldrew feels apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 02:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4770677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gets to learn her language again, the one she speaks when she’s not saying anything.</p><p>Or, three times May doesn't speak once she and Andrew leave for their vacation (and one time she does)</p>
            </blockquote>





	she doesn't speak (he listens)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts).



> because becketted told me I should write Meldrew, here's a first attempt :P

1.

They’re on the plane away from SHIELD, away from responsibilities, away from possible death, when Melinda takes his hand for the first time since...before.

There’s no speaking — she hasn’t uttered a sound since they left the SHIELD base — but there’s this.

She stretches her arm across the armrest between them, and he can see the quiver in her fingers — nerves — as she moves to drop her arm onto his thigh. Her hand is small, but still strong and sturdy as her fingers curve around his, strong and sturdy even with the slight tremble.

Andrew has always loved her hands. Every callous and tiny scar speaks of her power and her skill, stands in counterpoint to his own softer skin, to the callouses of someone who wields pens instead of weapons.

He watches from the corner of his eye as she takes three slow breaths and then tilts her head to look at him, as though checking that this is okay.

Her nerves are surprising, but they haven’t really touched, he realizes. There was talking in Phil’s office, and a hug that meant something different than _this_ , but this is the first time it feels real.

Andrew smiles, wide and warm, and watches as the somber mask that has taken up residence on her face seems to crack away.

She glows, and a smile seems grow from inside of her, to press her mouth to spread, her lips to curve, and in some ways it says more than a whole conversation could.

Melinda has _always_ been the strong, silent type, which means they always had other ways of communicating — smiles and touches and sighs and other...pleasant noises.

It’s like another language, one he used to be fluent in.

Of course, she’s different, now. Her silence feels less strong and more scared, and he has no way of knowing how much of it is because of Bahrain — because of all those things she wouldn’t talk about back then — and how much is because of everything that’s happened in the last two years.

In a way, it doesn’t matter. There’s just the fact that she’s changed, that she’s not exactly the same woman she used to be, even if he can see quite clearly that she’s still Melinda deep down. It’s not as though she’s _lost_ something, just that she’s different now, and that he has to — that he _gets to_ — learn her again.

He gets to learn her language again, the one she speaks when she’s not saying anything.

Slowly, he turns his hand under hers, so her fingertips drag across his palm, a ticklish sensation that makes his whole arm tingle.

Melinda looks up at him through her eyelashes as she draws more purposeful patterns there — a spiral that runs from his wrist up to his middle finger and back, swirls that dip between his fingers, and then a heart with its apex at his wrist.

He returns the gesture, watches as she shivers at the sensation, and then she grasps his hand in hers.

Open palm presses to open palm, a promise that they’re not going to pull back anymore, that they’re in this together again.

And maybe he remembers more of this than he thought.

 

2.

The sun has sunk almost to the horizon by the time they get to their hotel room, and everything between them moves faster than he’d thought it would.

He had figured they’d take more time to relearn each other, to feel this out, but Melinda has booked them a single room. A single bed.

And even if he doesn’t assume anything from that, the way she presses him against the door once they’ve set down their bags speaks volumes.

They stand, his back to the door her hands on his shoulders, for a long minute, and he’s sure she has something to say. Her mouth opens, like words should be falling out, but there’s only silence.

She lowers her eyes and shakes her head, and he knows this, remembers this — the self-recrimination when she doesn’t know how to say what she means to say.

He’s seen her get lost in her own head over this, even before.

It’s a surprise, then, when instead of retreating into herself, she pushes up on her toes and presses her lips to his.

The kiss is soft at first, like she’s feeling him out, and maybe if he were a stronger man he would force them to hold off on this.

If he were his own therapist, that would be his advice.

But he also knows that Melinda needs this, and that half of what should be said between them will be said without words. It will be said like this.

So he kisses her back, parts his lips for her and lets her lead them.

It comes back quickly — the way her lower lip catches between his, the way her tongue presses against his. There was always an urgency to the way Melinda kissed, to the way she made love, especially compared to his own tendency to take his time.

But it has always been a good urgency. It’s a vital urgency, like the kind of experience that reminds you you’re alive, the kind of experience that makes you _glad_ to be alive.

She presses her palms into the tops of his shoulders and slides her leg up his, like she wants to climb him, so he cups her ass and pulls her up against him, lifts her off the ground as much as he can.

Of course, she’s the one who does most of the work, who pulls herself up and wraps her thighs around his hips as her hands curve behind his head.

As it always was, her urgency is infectious. It’s impossible not to match it when he can feel how much she wants him, and kisses grow sloppier between them as he turns to press her into the wall.

Her legs wind tighter around his hips, so she’s grinding herself against him.

It’s perfect except for the layers of clothing between them, but Melinda doesn’t seem to care, and he does his best to focus on the moment — on her lips under his, on her body moving against his. He lets her be the one to escalate things again, to move from dry humping up against the wall to forcing her hands between them in a desperate effort to tear his jeans open.

When he pulls back to set her down, though, so she can get out of her clothes, she holds fast to his belt like she’s afraid he’ll bolt.

He doesn’t fight it, just stays still even when she pulls back to shuck her jeans and boots, leaving her naked from the waist down. As soon as she’s done, her hands are back at his belt, stripping him from the waist down, too.

She drops to her knees to tug off his shoes, even as he’s already toeing out of them, and he’s still got one sock on when she swallows his cock — the shocking wet heat of her mouth, tightness of her throat — in one motion that makes his knees shake.

He grunts and combs his hands through her hair, holding onto her, reminding himself that this is real — that they’ve somehow managed to find themselves here and alive and together.

“Melinda, please,” he moans, trying to pull her up until she goes along with it, until she stands up and plasters herself against him again, and he can almost taste himself on her lips.

He presses her to the wall and slips his hand between her thighs, shocked at how ready she is for him.

It’s easy to push two fingers inside of her as he rubs her clit with his thumb, and she’s so eager, thrusting back down against his fingers until she’s panting through an orgasm, until he’s swallowing her moans of pleasure.

“Condom?” He asks, looking towards his bag where he’d packed a box, but she shakes her head and raises her leg back up.

Again, it’s Melinda that does the work of climbing up his body — he mostly just presses her against the wall and groans as she guides him to her entrance, as he presses inside.

Her moan when he’s seated all the way inside of her is _loud_ , and he could swear it almost sounds like his name. He certainly moans _her_ name, loud and desperate as she squeezes around him, so he can feel it in his toes and the back of his neck.

All he can think as he pauses, leaning into the wall with his head dropped almost to her shoulder, is that he’s missed her. He’s missed her and he’s _missed_ her and he’s missed _her_ . He’s missed this — the sex, of course the sex, but the _intimacy_ , the feeling of being connected to another person.

There’s never been someone else for him, never someone else who could make him feel like he was part of something bigger, who could be so familiar and so surprising all at once.

She’s the one who starts moving, who begins to rock her hips between him and the wall, setting a slow pace that he only punctuates — an extra push whens she tilts hips towards him.

Soon, impatience wins over, though, and he drops his hand back between her legs to press against her clit as he takes over more of the thrusting.

“ _God_ ,” he grunts into her ear before he kisses her again, lips on lips as his pace speeds up, as he drives them both closer to the edge.

Even in her wordlessness, she’s not silent, and he can hear in every moan and every sigh how much she’s missed him, too, how glad she is to have him, too.

She bites him, teeth firm in his neck as she comes, her whole body tightly clenched around him. She’s still shaking, still holding him as tightly as she can, when he follows, a silent grunt against the side of her face.

They collapse against the wall, and Melinda’s legs fall from around his waist so she slides back down to the floor.

“Mmmmm,” she hums, a quiet noise of pleasure and satisfaction as she cups his cheeks in her palms and pulls his mouth down against hers. They both smile into the kiss, sharing deep easy breaths between them.

Andrew only breaks it to pull her purple t-shirt over her head, and she helps with her bra before helping him off with his shirt, too.

Naked, they collapse backwards onto the bed and crawl under the covers to curl around each other.

 

3.

He wakes up in the bed alone, not even an hour after they crawled in, feels a stab of terror in his gut to find her gone.

Then he hears the shower running.

It calms his fears less than it probably should, so that as he rises from the bed and walks to the bathroom door, he grows more and more worried of what he’ll find.

She didn’t lock the door, which is a good sign — that maybe she’s not purposefully closing herself off. And when he steps inside, into the steam and the heat, she’s quick to smile at him from inside the large, open shower.

It’s pretty apparent that she’s been crying, though, and he gestures to the door — silent question of whether she’d like to be alone.

Melinda shakes her head, instead beckons him to join her under the rainfall showerhead.

He steps inside gingerly, waiting for his skin to heat up to the temperature of the water, but she doesn’t wait before pressing her body against his — wet and warm and soft.

And there have been so few moments in the time he’s known her when he’s felt her as a small woman, but he feels it now in the way her head tucks so easily into his chest, in the way his hands can wrap so completely around her upper arms, in the way he can cup her shoulder blades and feel the shape of her bones under her skin.

He’s lost in his own thoughts, marveling at how so much strength and determination can exist in such a slight frame, so that he almost doesn’t notice when she starts crying again.

It takes self-control not to speak, not to reassure her or just try to soothe her. But she needs this, she needs the cry. Maybe he has a lot to re-learn, or to learn anew, but one thing he knows about her is that she hasn’t ever let herself do this, hasn’t ever let herself find a way to channel everything she holds inside.

For him, it means _everything_ that she trusts him enough to do this here, to include him in her vulnerability. He hopes he understands her, that this means she’s ready to work on everything that’s been eating at her, everything that tore them apart.

She doesn’t cry for long, but she stays folded into his arms, letting him kiss her head, letting him offer all the comfort her has to offer.

“Let me wash your hair?” He whispers the question into the top of her head, and she nods in response, face still pressed to his neck, and then pulls back.

She drags her fingers across her eyes and smiles at him, shockingly beautiful in her nakedness and vulnerability, with her hair plastered around her shoulders.

The little bottles provided by the hotel are a luxury brand that smells like jasmine and vanilla, a scent that makes him smile when he snaps open the cap and pours it into his hands.

Her shampoo of choice used to be jasmine, and it brings back memories of doing this before — very much the same, but very much different, too. Like she always did, Melinda goes soft under his hands, relaxed against him as he massages her scalp, and stays that way even when he pulls back enough to apply conditioner.

He always liked this ritual — of caring for her, of doing something to make her feel safe and protected. He always liked the way her hair feels with water running through it, too, silky and smooth between his fingers.

It’s not until he opens the bottle of body wash that Melinda pulls away and grabs the bottle, something playful in her expression.

“I’m taking care of you, here,” he faux-complains, but she ignores it, and instead pours soap between her palms and begins to lather the suds from his neck down his body.

“Hmmm,” she sighs as her fingers move slowly over every ridge of muscle down his chest, and he relaxes under her touch. Sometimes letting her be the one doing the caring is as much for her as for him.

Her hand curves around his cock, brings him to fully hard as she rubs her thumb across the tip, and he probably shouldn’t think such grandiose thoughts about how this is really for her. She pushes him backwards, so his back is against the shower wall, and begins to move her hand in earnest.

“Melinda,” he sighs her name, and he loves her name — has always loved her name. It’s _sensual_ , he thinks, and he moans it again, again, again as his eyes slip closed.

Her lips on his chest, over his heart, pull him out of his momentary stupor enough to meet her eyes as she begins to trail kisses lower. Andrew shivers, skin almost crying out in anticipation of her mouth, of the warmth and the care and the sweetness of her.

She’s still holding his gaze when she sinks to her knees and parts her lips to pull his cock into her mouth; he shakes his head because he’s not going to last. Somehow, she manages to smile around him, humor in her eyes even as her tongue makes a wicked pattern under the head.

He can feel it — how _pleased_ she is that she can still drive him to the edge so quickly, that she’s still the master of his body.

“Melinda, _stop_ ,” he breathes, too close, way too close. 

She shakes her head, evil glint in her eye as she sucks hard on the tip of him. 

It makes him shiver, and he drags his hand through her wet hair against as she changes the pattern of her tongue against him. He groans and throws his head back against the shower wall as he lets go. It's not long before he's coming on her tongue, a pulse of pleasure that rips through him, leaving him breathless. As he comes down, she keeps her mouth on him, lips caressing carefully, tender against his oversensitive nerves.

Andrew drags his open palm down her hair, feeling the slip of of her wet strands under his hand, and holds her gaze as she smiles up at him.

But it’s not enough. Melinda taking care of him isn’t enough, and he curves his hand under her jaw, down her neck, trying to entice her up.

She follows easily as he pulls her up against him and kisses her so he can taste himself.

He breaks open the bottle of bodywash again, pours out a generous pool into his hand, and washes her as she did for him, fingers careful over every inch of skin.

There are a few new scars he can see — one on her shoulder, something on her hip. It gives him sympathy pains to think about her getting hurt, to think about the pain she’s faced, but she’s always come through, somehow stronger. Even if it takes time.

Andrew runs his hands over her breasts, cupping them and drawing his thumbs over her nipples, and for a moment it’s like seven years haven’t passed.

He kisses her as his hands run down between her legs, letting the trail of lather get her clean before he drops to his knees in front of her.

She just smiles and leans back against the wall, open for him as he presses his tongue against her.

“Mmmm,” he lets out a satisfied groan, watches as her smile grows even wider before he begins to move his tongue in earnest.

It’s not until he brings his fingers up against her that her hand clutches at the back of his head and her knees start to shake.

She comes with his fingers inside of her and his tongue pressed against her, and he works her through the orgasm slowly as her hips pulse against the wall.

Andrew doesn’t rise immediately, instead takes his time kissing all of Melinda’s body, reacquainting himself with the feel of her until she’s finally able to stand fully upright again.

“Shall we order some room service?” He asks as he rises up from his knees, stretching his aching knees slowly before pulling her back under the showerhead.

“Hmmm,” she agrees quietly as she nuzzles into his neck.

 

+1

It’s almost funny how easy it is to fall asleep with her in the bed, when he’s grown so accustomed to sleeping alone. But they fall asleep like they always did, tangled around each other, and during the night they slide just far enough apart that they don’t interfere with each other’s sleep.

When he wakes up, light streaming through the tiny strip in the center of the curtains, they’re on their own sides of the bed except that her leg is stretched into his space, tangled with his own.

Her skin is smooth and soft, a pleasant warmth between his calves, and he can’t quite help the way he slides his leg along hers, appreciating the feel of it.

Even though he didn’t mean to wake her, she stirs at his movement, and her other leg joins in the tangle of skin on skin.

And then she rolls towards him, presses the whole of her naked body against his.

“Good morning.” And just the sound of her voice makes him smile.

He cups her cheek and drags his fingers through her hair, just taking in the beauty of her.

“Morning, beautiful.”

It’s corny, but it’s also true, and along with the eyeroll he gets a wide smile.

“How are you?” He asks the question tentatively, but he wants to encourage her to talk if she's ready.

Melinda pauses at the question, and he watches her draw a deep breath as her eyes drop down to the bed.

“Better,” she answers after a moment, and then raises her gaze to meet his. Her smile goes more pensive, and she presses her lips together — a sure sign that she’s struggling with something she wants to say, maybe the same thing she wanted to say last night.

Andrew reaches across the short distance between them and brushes his index finger across her cheek. He wants her to talk — he wants it so much it hurts — but he doesn’t press.

“I love you,” she tells him, brave and straight to the point. “I never stopped loving you, not for one minute.”

His immediate desire is to return the words because they’re true, because he never stopped loving her. He never _will_. But he also knows that it’s not that easy, that the best they can do for each other is start over, learn to love each other as the people they’ve become.

“I know,” she tells him with a wry smile, “that it’s not that easy. But I just need you to know that no matter how much we’ve both changed…”

“I still love you,” he finishes her sentence.

She smiles, wide again, and rolls on top of him, so she’s straddling his hips, her naked body stretched over him. His hands can almost span the narrowest part of her waist, and he holds her there, thumbs pressing soft circles against her belly.

He’s hard between her thighs, and she slides herself against him, trapping his cock between his stomach and the heat of her.

Melinda is larger than life again, today, larger than her small frame, and it makes him smile to see her so much more sure of herself.

Her face falls, though, as she looks down at him.

“I watched Bobbi and Hunter…” She stops and shakes her head, and he didn’t see Bobbi until she had been through a few surgeries — two for her leg and three pulmonary surgeries for complications from a gunshot wound — but he can imagine how bad it must have been to be there on the scene.

He brushes her hair back from her face.

“I don’t want to deny this part of myself anymore.”

“This part?” He drags his open palms down her arms.

“Hmm,” she sighs and raises herself up, rocks her hips over his until she’s poised on top of him, and then sinks down in a series of slow, shallow thrusts until he’s pressed deep inside of her.

Andrew groans and slides his hands down to her hips, grips her there as he presses himself up against her.

“And what does this part of you want?”

“Home,” she answers. “To come home.”

It makes him breathless, the serious look in her eye and the sound of her voice and the promise that home means _with him_.

Their gaze holds as she moves her hips over him in a slow circle.

It’s too much, too intense, and he rolls them so he’s on top of her, but he remains still.

“Tell me,” he begs her because some things, some things he needs to hear in words.

“I don’t want to close off anymore,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and pushes his hips down against hers until she moans.

Melinda wraps her legs around his hips, presses him somehow deeper inside of her.

“I thought —” She pauses and grasps his face between her palms. “I thought I was protecting myself.”

“You were.”

“No, I was holding it in and it was tearing me apart.”

They fall still — wrapped around each other, Andrew buried inside her, but with no other movement.

“I’m glad you can see that.”

“Being back in the field, though...it wasn’t such a bad thing for me.”

He frowns at that, has a hard time believing it if he’s being honest.

“I let people in,” she explains. “I didn’t mean to, and some I shouldn’t have, but…”

Andrew leans down and kisses her, a thorough exploration of her mouth.

“You told me that when you let people in, you make mistakes,” he reminds her.

She nods.

“I don’t have it all figured out.”

“But you want to figure it out.”

“I do.”

It makes him smile because this is all he would ever ask for from her — that she be willing to figure it out, that they figure it out together.

“I’m glad.”

Melinda rolls them, so he’s once again on his back. She kisses him once and then lets her hair drag down his chest until she rolls herself upright, once more towering above him. Slowly, she raises her hips up until he’s pressed against her entrance instead of inside of her, and pauses.

Andrew swallows, pulses his hips up against hers, seeking to push back inside.

“Can that be enough?”

“Yes,” he gasps. “Yes, Melinda.”

She lowers herself back down, lets him push all the way back inside, and he has to grit his teeth to keep from coming.

But he’s been waiting seven long years for Melinda to come home, and he’s going to take his time enjoying it.

 


End file.
